Raf­fi Berg is the Mid­dle East edi­tor of the BBC News web­site, and has exten­sive expe­ri­ence report­ing on Israel and the wider region. His arti­cle, scratch­ing the sur­face of this sto­ry, was the most-read orig­i­nal fea­ture in the his­to­ry of the site, with more than five and a half mil­lion read­ers to date.